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Forbes CMO Interview: Grubhub’s Barbara Martin Coppola

When you are watching your favorite show, do you look forward to the interruption of an advertisement? The beauty of the DVR is that we can skip advertisements that have not earned our attention. If you want to make a big impact, you have to deliver valuable content, not just old-school self-promotion. Realize that if you want the right customers, you need to know the new rules of content and marketing to attract the best sales opportunities. As I noted in the 2016 Trends Article, “The Best Companies Will Tightly Integrate Content Marketing into Their Sales Process."

I had the good fortune to spend some time speaking with Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and producer of the popular Content Marketing World conference as a guest on the Grow My Revenue Business Cast. In CMI’s documentary film, The Story of Content, you can see how top brands have effectively developed stories to address the biggest challenges of their ideal customers. Is this notion of content marketing new? Pulizzi shares one of his favorite examples, John Deere. In their publication, The Furrow, John Deere has provided value to the farmer for more than 125 years. In their publication, across all those years, John Deere mentioned themselves fewer than 20 times. Millions of subscribers rely on their publication to provide unbiased information, and has done so since 1895.

If the net that marketing casts is too broad, then the sales organization wastes a ton of time sorting through garbage opportunities that are not likely to turn into revenue. It gets worse, though. If you spend too much time chasing garbage leads, you might fall into a pattern. This means that after 20 bad opportunities in a row, you might overlook a good opportunity that happens to be contact number 21. It’s time to stop falling into these traps and start attracting the right sales opportunities. In order to help, follow this formula for success.

Content Marketing Defined

Joe Pulizzi defines content marketing as, “A business model to create valuable, relevant and compelling information on a consistent basis to a targeted audience to see some profitable behavior for our organization.” Joe then illustrates how to build an audience that likes, trusts, and respects your business. Joe shares, “Don’t focus on your products, but instead focus on your customer’s needs. You need to tell a different story to cut through the clutter.”

Marcus Sheridan of TheSalesLion.com, suggests that your goal should be to “become the best teacher on the planet for whatever it is you do.” Marcus explains that too many businesses fear giving away their secret sauce – which isn’t so secret. Think about your ideal customers. What information would they find valuable enough that they might be willing to pay for it? In most cases, customers seek answers to their questions. They want to know how to solve important challenges for themselves or their businesses.